BRITAIN:Gordon Brown won a sensational personal triumph yesterday when almost 90 per cent of his fellow MPs backed him as the unchallenged new Labour leader and next British prime minister.
Mr Brown said he was "truly humbled" by the scale of his support, which left too few remaining MPs to enable any other candidate to force a contest.
Left-winger John McDonnell had already bowed to the inevitable, while saying it was a shame party members would not have a say in choosing their new leader, and maintaining he would have won surprising levels of support from them and affiliated trade unions.
However, a jubilant Mr Brown said the determination of his colleagues had demonstrated that the far left had little support within the party. And with nominations from 313 of 353 eligible MPs, the chancellor and prime minister-designate said the outcome "shows to the country a party wholly united in its determination not to retreat into the past, but going forward as New Labour to address the opportunities and challenges of the future".
Under the pre-established timetable Mr Brown must wait another six weeks while his party chooses from six candidates for the deputy leadership and before Tony Blair surrenders his seals of office and finally leaves 10 Downing Street on June 27th.
Mr Brown will be formally installed as leader three days before at a special party conference in Manchester at which John Prescott's successor will be declared. In the meantime, Mr Brown will travel the country and abroad while a transfer of power and authority accelerates within Whitehall.
Despite the wishes of some MPs, there is no question of Mr Blair and Mr Brown operating a dual premiership during the transition, and Mr Brown made clear he would not be attending the forthcoming G8 or EU summits.
However, during an extraordinarily relaxed press conference the new Labour leader appeared to relish the prospect of spending the forthcoming weeks "listening to the British people".
In a signal of his priorities, Mr Brown disclosed plans for a draft constitutional reform Bill that he hopes will lead to a new constitutional settlement and "a different kind of politics".
Accepting that constitutional issues might not be uppermost in the minds of voters, Mr Brown stressed his commitment to restoring "trust" in politics.